Such Beautiful Dreams (look at how they fall as tears from your eyes)
by AneRiam
Summary: Your childish innocence lets you lose yourself within your fantasies for a while. But you grow up, you learn, and reality grabs those dreams and compares them to real life and then thrusts them back at you, mockingly. Shoving them restlessly in your face, because real life is harsh, real life is cold, and fantasies don't exist in this world.
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** I had to write these little poems a while ago for a Great Gatsby Project for my AP English class and I found them as I was looking through my computer so I decided to put them on here. Hope you enjoy them.

~ _AneRiam_

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 _Your Little Dream Box_

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You dream big dreams, small dreams, and fantastical dreams, ever since you were a child. You dream of dragons, of gold, of fairy tales, and true love and your childish innocence lets you lose yourself within your fantasies for a while. Then you grow up, you learn, and reality grabs those dreams and compares them to real life and then thrusts them back at you, mockingly. Shoving them restlessly in your face because real life is harsh, real life is cold, and fantasies don't exist in this world.

So you grab these dreams and shove them away, stuff them into your little box, your little dream box, and lock them up at the back of your mind. You make new dreams, practical ones, ones you "can achieve"- ones that everyone tells you can be achieved, but what do they know what you can achieve? The only one who knows that is yourself- and you go on through life.

That little box always under the surface of your mind, dreams occasionally stuffed in whenever they became "unachievable." You keep the lid tightly shut and locked up because you don't want to see those dreams, don't want to have them come free, but the box is too small and the dreams are too big and one day it can't take it anymore and it bursts open anyway and the dreams race through your mind and cloud your sight.

They overwhelm you with their intensity and beckon you, call you to them. To fulfill them, immerse yourself within them and forget about everything else in the world. Though maybe you should because some dreams, no matter how big, how unachievable they seem, are the ones that help you succeed. Yet, other dreams will always be just out of your reach and if you lose yourself within them they can ruin you, destroy you.

So you either ignore them or follow them but always, in the back of your mind, they will all call. A mess of whispers that beckon you, taunt you restlessly, over and over again- " _come here, come here."_


	2. Chapter 2

_Of Diamond Rings and Broken Dreams_

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You look up at him, your eyes shining, your heart pumping, and you sigh wistfully because he is like Prince Charming, a dream come true. (Though in the back of your head you remember of that other dream, of the handsome soldier boy that almost took your heart with him, but this dream is now, this dream can become real.)

So you follow your prince around and immerse yourself in the relationship and you tell him continuously, "You always look so cool," and you continue dreaming. Of true love, of the perfect marriage, of the perfect life, because you're too stuck in your dreams to see if he has any flaws, because you believe that true love will make things right.

By the end of the summer everyone in town is talking about how you're, "presumably engaged to a man from New Orleans," but your mother, who knows about the harshness of reality, looks at you with those jaded eyes and whispers, " _beautiful little fool. "_

You ignore her and continue in the clouds and then the rings are on and the vows are said the dream becomes reality. So you open your eyes and sometimes Prince Charming really is there and you do get your happily ever after, but most times the flaws come out, the pedestal crumbles, and the dream shatters into tiny little shiny shards of glass that continuously pierce your heart.

Time passes and you try to ignore the pain but the shards are still there, leaving the wounds open and bare, and one day your little girl comes to you with shiny eyes and books on fairy tales, princes, and true love, and you cry. You pick her up, stroke her hair, and you cry.

You whisper into her ear, from within your heart, within your soul, " _beautiful little fool,"_ and you finally understand what your mother tried to say. So you hope that your little girl gets her happily ever after because the glass shards, broken dreams, hurt and you don't want her to know of that pain. But you know that she needs to learn and needs to live on her own. So even though it hurts you dislodge the words from your throat and remind her, continuously, "You dream, you. You absolute little dream."


	3. Chapter 3

" _The Holocaust was complete"_

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Some dreams are too big to do on your own, but they're too precious for you to let go. So you do all you can to make them come true- even if it means hurting others and changing your own rules. You saw the chance and grabbed it with both hands because even if it chips away your soul your dream comes that much closer. You see the money grow and try to blend in with the rest but they feel it, they see the difference between you and them.

"He's a bootlegger," they theorize between themselves, "He killed a man once," they whisper behind their hands. Because even though your fantasies blind you from their stares, you can't fool them, your morals are not like theirs. But you're too stuck in your head, up in the clouds, and that is a dangerous place to be in for too long.

Others see it, they try to pull you back. They warn you not to dwell in the past but you're too lost to listen to them, even if deep down you realize it as the truth. But it can't be because it would mean that all your troubles had been for nothing. So you stubbornly go on and say to all that listen, "You can't repeat the past… _Why of course you can!_ " but the past is the past and dreams are supposed to stay in your head, but no one told you that and now you're in too deep.

Dreams and reality woven so tightly together in your head that you no longer know which is which. And that is dangerous because reality is unforgiving and sooner or later it drags you back, pulls you out from within your head. But you go on unaware though life, through that glistening pool. Unaware of reality's messenger coming at you until you hear the shot, but by then is too late.

And reality sneers, and mocks, and whispers into your cold, cold, ear, " _the past is the past and those dreams were always just within your head."_ And by then you're far gone, up in the clouds where you've always been. Reality has the last laugh and, finally, '' _the holocaust was complete."_


	4. Chapter 4

_Poor Man's Dream, Rich Man's World_

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"The rich get richer and the poor get- children."

That seemed like a rule of life, like a statement that had become truth. It feels like you had been marked to stay in the same social class you were born into and only those lucky enough could jump the chasm. The chasm that seemed to always grow larger.

It didn't used to bother you at first, not really. Sure you wanted to become someone, but if that got you over the chasm or not wasn't really your concern. That is until you met her.

She was a dream, what you could only hope to have as your own, but she was at other side of the chasm. She didn't realize it, not with your uniform on, but you did. Every time you held her hand, stood in her presence, wished she was yours, and it pained you to realize that she would never be yours. Not with that wide gap between the two of you. But you hope and dream of a day that you can have her.

So you work hard, you travel, and you do whatever it takes to jump that gap. Sometimes you almost fall but you fix yourself and keep soaring until you reach the other side. That fantastic dream pushing you forward.

Before you know it you're there, with the piles of money, shiny cars, and enormous house that everyone says is "a colossal affair by any standard." You throw parties to get her attention and because you can. So you watch as "men and girls come and went like moths among the whispering and the champagne and the stars."

You revel in it, feel like you're on top of the world, because now you're on the same level, on the same side and you can finally have your dream come true. So you wait for her every night and watch that "single green light, minute and far away" patiently, because now the hard part is done. Soon you'll have her and everything will be back to the way it was, just the two of you. You know it, you can see it in the stars and you can taste it in the air.


End file.
